The European Parliament is currently discussing a reform of the EU's electoral law. In this debate, many pro-European voices have promoted the creation of transnational lists, among them MEP Guy Verhofstadt. Real solution to strengthen the Union or quick-fix avoiding a more thorough reform? Since the beginning of the COVID…

European Democracy Consulting's λogos project challenges the implementation of national parties’ requirement to display the logo of their European party on their website. In modern representative democracies, the link between citizens and the political parties representing them is essential. While considerations such as citizen engagement or parties’ internal democracy are…

Donations and contributions are essential parts of political parties’ private funding. In the absence of initiatives by the Authority for European Political Parties to provide European citizens with properly visible financial information on their European parties, European Democracy Consulting is stepping in; we’ve got you covered! In its complaint to…

Since March 2020, European Democracy Consulting has been working on an assessment of the implementation of transparency provisions under Article 32 of Regulation 1141/2014 on European political parties. This work has led to several reports and to an inquiry by the European Ombudsman. On 4 February, we concluded this process…

New Geographical Representation in EU Leadership Observatory highlights lack of representation of Central and Eastern European citizens in EU leadership. A report by European Democracy Consulting analyses data on EU office-holders from 1952 to 2020 and reveals the extent of the discrepancies in representation among the EU’s sub-regions. The report…

On 24 September, the European Parliament’s committee for constitutional affairs held a hearing on transnational lists and the Spitzenkandidaten system. Ahead of this hearing, Alberto Alemanno, Giorgio Clarotti, Olivier Costa and Christophe Leclercq argued, in a column published by EURACTIV, that transnational lists “would make it possible to run truly…

If the Council’s agreement on a package for the EU’s top jobs is, in itself, good news, there remains much to be skeptical about and the Council’s behaviour may constitute the original sin plaguing a von der Leyen Commission. Last week, the European Council put an end to its marathon…

Nationalist parties all across the EU have long been feeding off the Union’s lack of democracy and are bound to jump on the way the new leaders of EU institutions are elected to reinforce their message. Let us seize this opportunity to strengthen our European democracy and finally allow the…